Pyongyang’s top force is far from the SAS – but it should not be underestimated, analysts say
James Rothwell
19 October 2024
The Telegraph
Ukraine warned of a “huge” escalation risk on Saturday as hundreds of elite North Korean troops were predicted to enter the battlefield within days in support of Russia.
Around 10,000 of Pyongyang’s soldiers are preparing to join Moscow’s army, according to Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian president, and South Korean intelligence.
Video released on Friday showed North Korean troops arriving at Russian bases in the country’s far east, picking up military equipment in long queues.
Some 1,500 special forces were transferred to the port city of Vladivostok, with further deployments expected in the near future, the NIS, Seoul’s intelligence service, reported.
Kyrylo Budanov, Ukraine’s military intelligence chief, said around 2,600 soldiers will be sent to fight in Kursk by Nov 1.
North Korea’s Special Operations Forces [SOF] is one of the most secretive units of its kind in the world and an enigma to Western powers, appearing loyal and highly trained but lacking in advanced military equipment.
The personnel reportedly sent to Vladivostok are presumed to have been sourced from the 200,000-strong ranks of the SOF, which is primarily used to probe and test South Korean defences.
According to the NIS, the troops were issued Russian military uniforms, weapons and fake IDs, and are expected to be deployed to Ukraine once they have completed acclimatisation training.
“This seems to be an effort to disguise the fact that they are North Korean troops by making them appear as Russian soldiers,” the spy agency said.
Andriy Sybiga, the Ukrainian foreign minister, said North Korean soldiers fighting for Russia carried a “huge threat of further escalation” on Saturday.
Though fiercely loyal to Pyongyang, it is unclear what role the non-Russian-speaking special forces will fulfil on Ukraine’s eastern front, which has slowly become a war of attrition – hardly a traditional arena for covert missions.
Mike Turner, a Republican member of the House of Representatives and chairman of its intelligence committee, wrote to Joe Biden complaining about the lack of further detail from the White House on North Korean troop movements.
“The administration has not briefed the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence of any assessments by US intelligence agencies or the department of defence regarding these troop movements,” he wrote, calling for an immediate briefing on the matter.
Founded around 1968, the SOF is perhaps best known for a disastrous attempt at raiding the Blue House, South Korea’s presidential residence, that year, which ended in the death of 29 out of the 31 operatives involved.
Unlike the SAS or Israeli Mossad, little else is known about the intelligence service’s exploits, though some of its troops took part in a rare public event in 2017 that involved marching in formation alongside regular army soldiers.
In images broadcast by North Korean state TV, SOF troops were seen wearing black camouflage paint and dark sunglasses. They also carried what state media described as a new rifle fitted with a grenade launcher, and were clad in helmets with night vision goggles.
Several news reports at the time noted a distinct similarity to the uniforms of South Korean special forces – known as the Black Berets – suggesting they may have been modelled directly after them.
A report by Maxwell Goldstein, an analyst at Grey Dynamics, the London-based intelligence consultancy, in July described the SOF as aspiring to be “highly trained troops equipped with the best gear available for dangerous but essential missions”.
He said the SOF possesses 12 light infantry brigades, three reconnaissance units for operating behind enemy lines, three airborne divisions and three general sniper units, in addition to sniper brigades attached to air force and naval forces.
The SOF’s estimated size of 200,000 men is unusual in comparison to other international special forces units. The British SAS is believed to have as few as 500 active soldiers at any given time, while the US Delta Force contains some 2,000 operating members.
A 2021 report by the US Defence Intelligence Agency described the SOF as highly trained, highly motivated and fitted with the best equipment available to a pariah state such as North Korea, including chemical and biological agents.
However, it also observed: “Compared with the equipment of other worldwide SOF units, North Korea’s equipment is rudimentary and North Korean SOF probably lacks such sophisticated items as burst communications equipment, advanced signal-processing equipment, and specialised explosives.”
Ahmed Hassan, the CEO of Grey Dynamics, stressed that SOF were deemed “special” by North Korean army standards and not the criteria for Nato or Russian special forces.
“If there is a ranking between one and ten, and let’s say one is a basic soldier and ten is let’s say Delta Force or the SAS, then the NK force sits at 5,” Mr Hassan told The Telegraph. “The North Koreans don’t have a similar indication of what special operations mean, such as Nato standards. In North Korean parlance it’s more like, anything outside of a normal soldier.”
The SOF is rumoured to have been deployed to Syria in support of Bashar al-Assad, the country’s dictator, but some evidence suggested the troops were merely North Korean mercenaries.
Prof Hazel Smith, a leading UK expert on North Korea at SOAS University, advised caution over Seoul’s claim that special forces could soon be deployed to Ukraine. She noted that some of its previous intelligence assessments had turned out to be “spectacularly wrong.”
“It is very difficult to ascertain the validity of the South Korean intelligence statement,” she said.
“If there are soldiers, the only reason they are likely to be special operations soldiers is that North Korea can’t risk sending conscripts as they don’t trust conscripts; their priority would be to defect or disappear. Special operations soldiers are considered to be more loyal to the North Korean government.”
Prof Smith also pointed out that the eastern front in Ukraine was primarily being used as a “meat-grinder” battlefield by Vladimir Putin, where the role of special operations soldiers would be unclear – especially ones who do not speak any Russian.
Bruce W Bennett, an analyst at the RAND think tank, called on the US to begin information campaigns to convince North Korean soldiers sent to Russia to defect to the West.
“It has been reported that six officers from [North Korea]were killed in Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine, a message that will likely anger their families in Pyongyang and thus should also be broadcast into North Korea,” he wrote this week.
North Korea’s greatest ally – the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) – is “currently not that bothered by support for Russia,” according to Ian Garner, a historian and analyst of Russian culture.
On Saturday, the US announced sanctions against Chinese firms linked to the production of suicide drones being used against Ukraine.
But Beijing, which regards North Korea as a buffer zone between itself and the US-allied South Korea, has historically opposed any decisions by Pyongyang that are deemed risky or destabilising to Chinese foreign affairs, notably its trade relations with the West.
“If China does say no [to the final deployment of troops], it won’t happen,” Mr Garner told The Telegraph.
“Russia has very little to offer North Korea compared to what China offers, so if Beijing puts the dampeners on the plan, then those troops may never materialise at the front.”